Fayemi

Fayemi: Redefining South West Politics
By

Nduka Uzuakpundu

Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, is a bundle of informed and rewarding patience. Until the Appeal Court in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, ruled on October 15, 2010, that he was the contestant duly elected in the 2007 gubernatorial polls, only a handful of political analysts in the state rooted, confidently, in – in the honest and healthy belief that the consistently litigious Fayemi – a fairly fat Orwellian pig, for that matter, and the first of his tribe, who specialises in crime and war, to get this far – really had a ghost of a chance of being crowned the democratic occupant of the State House.      ,

Far less for emphasis sake, Fayemi – a fairly fat Orwellian pig – is clearly the first, in fourteen years, since the creation of Ekiti State, on October 1, 1996, to go through the harrowing experience of almost being robbed, clearly out of malice, of the state’s gubernatorial crown. That Fayemi literally went to war to combat the crime of political injustice done against him was a manifestation of his unswerving belief in the Nigerian judiciary. At every appealing turn, armed with persuasive evidence, he went to court to dispute the result of the state gubernatorial race as declared on the state’s Independent Electoral Commission. He once told the BBC that he couldn’t have done otherwise, so as not to give workers, tax-payers and voters in Ekiti State the wrong impression that Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which he represented, was a party of thugs – and not a congress of law-abiding progressives and democrats.

His patience and collected countenance throughout what’s now rightly referred to as an epic struggle for democratic justice and fair play, have paid very well off. Many thanks to the same combative character of an Orwellian pig in him, that informed his doggedness in taking on the behemoth that is resource-rich, ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Perhaps, after the Peter Obi victory in Anambra State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s in Edo State, Fayemi and CAN felt that Ekiti State was fairly within their reach. Still, even new that Fayemi is gradually settling down to redirect the affairs of the state, on a manifesto strewn with promises of people-oriented development – this after what could best be described as a cadmean victory – there’s a lingering question: how come it that it took the court so long and, at best, at a pace that was visibly the jet speed of a glacial dawdle – to reverse the verdict of the state’s Independent Electoral Commission, in favour of Fayemi and ACN? Was it a calculatedly malicious experiment at political and psychological frustration? And given the time the pro-Fayemi verdict was delivered, was it in a perceived instance of conspiracy and injustice – to give the incumbent, Governor ’Segun Oni, some consolation of having nearly served his term in office before Fayemi advent? Whatever the response, the coming of Fayemi assumes that there’s a prima facie case against the Ekiti State Independent Electoral Commission for, in retrospect, making the wrong person – ’Segun Oni – the State Governor.

The consuming victory and crowing justice for Fayemi and ACN should not foreclose an investigation into the injustice which Fayemi and his immediate circle of political associates – and the good people of Ekiti State, who voted for ACN – have suffered for this long. An investigation – born less out of malice to none – ought to be instituted to set the record straight: that, truly, Fayemi and ACN were not shoddy in the manner they pressed their case for democratic justice. The investigation in the Fayemi-ACN case, that one presses, is one that ought – for, amongst others, the students of history, who may want to study an aspect of political injustice in a democratic locale, as Nigeria – to take into account what political camp all the actors in the Ekiti State Independent Electoral Commission truly belong(ed); what mind-set they had when they – “in accordance with the evidence before us” – ruled in favour of ’Segun Oni? Were they, truly, at that time, acting independently, unswayed by the awesomely rich political foes of Fayemi, within and outside Ekiti State?

Yes, the quest for political justice, democratic rectitude and transparency in Ekiti State, that this writer presses, via an objective investigation, ought not be driven by the spirit of Ate or the desire to witch hunt anyone. Far from it. The intent is to instill in the people of Ekiti State an abiding spirit of political vigilance: never, again, to allow anyone not of their choice, in a democratic milieu, to lord it, as it were, over them. And if the same investigation succeeds in unmasking the true face of the dramatis personae behind the political and democratic injustice done Fayemi, ACN and the people of Ekiti State, fine. And, further, if that, in itself, would trigger off a state-wide decision to keep such characters, at a well-defined, leprous, political distance, fine; no less. The investigation ought, in part, to be an object lesson concerning the sangfroid with which Fayemi countenanced the injustice done him, for as long as it lasted, without resorting some senseless and consuming violence that once informed the tag “Wild, Wild West”, as if politics in South-West is painfully intolerant of peacefully conduct.

The greatest injustice – indeed, the most unpardonable ingratitude – which the Fayemi administration would do to the people of Ekiti State, is never to dig into the electoral robbery which ACN has suffered. Remember Santayana: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.”    Since Fayemi’s triumphant return, countless congratulatory messages have been sent, from every corner of Nigeria, to his e-mail box and mobile phone. But, somewhat surprisingly, the only fairly fat, Orwellian pig that has stubbornly refused to deign Fayemi some felicitation is Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka – the founder of Progressive Front for People’s Federation (PFPF); an organisation with an opaque manifesto! Notorious for his woefully niggling political achievements, in the past fifty years, Soyinka is the only one who’s stubbornly swollen with envy because of the miraculously gargantuan strides of a political nonentity called Fayemi. And, in response to Soyinka’s dishonourable political posturing, Fayemi says, with a touch of arrogant vaticination, “ ‘in vain’ “your hairlessly, insolent intrusion into politics. How dare you, a senile lion, dabble into politics in your twilight years!” And the lying poet in Odia Ofeimun, the playwright in Professor ’Femi Osofisan, and the creator of employment in Dr. ’Yemi Ogunbiyi chorus, at Fayemi’s prodding: “Be warned the road you have elected to take into politics does not lead any Nobelist, not even you, Soyinka, to a Vaclav Havel.

Fayemi tells Soyinka that “the politics of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic is not for cowards who cannot hold a radio station to ransom. Rather, it’s a democratic politics that has a gargantuan room for greedy elements with very fine record of consuming pig without gastronmic options!”   Fayemi’s coming is historical, to the extent that it signals a redefinition of politics in the South-West of Nigeria – in a post-Obasanjo era. It calls for some soul-searching and an effective strategy as to how best to preserve the South-West for those who’re, genuinely, of the progressive, Awoist camp – in agreement with Mr. Idowu Ajanaku, a Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola. In a post-Obasanjo era, Fayemi rekindles hope that, very shortly, ACN would, justifiably, be the ruling party – for the next sixty years (!) – in the South-West of Nigeria.

Such a popular ambition can be transmitted to fruition if the ACN doggedly insists on free education, environmental, rural and urban renewal, infrastructural development, reinforcement of security of life and prosperity in an active liaison with the police – as in Lagos State – and, amongst other programmes, provision of employment opportunities for products of tertiary institutions. These are some of the plans that Fayemi has for Ekiti State. His coming points to one stubborn fact: the South-West of Nigeria has no room for non-believers in the progressive ideology of the late, unnaturally tenacious apostle of free education and socialism – Chief Obafemi Awolowo. But the first test for Fayemi, in the next one hundred days, is how well he strives hard to shed some flesh, endeavour, always, to don his Awoist cap and insist on wearing a spartanly appearance – like the great sage from Ikenne – in an indication of this readiness to serve.